BishopAccountability.org
	Vatican Lashes Back at Ireland over Abuse By Rachel Donadio New York Times September 3, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/world/europe/04vatican.html VATICAN CITY — In a strong rebuke to the Irish government, the Vatican said Saturday that it had never discouraged Irish bishops from reporting the sexual abuse of minors to the police and dismissed claims that it had undermined efforts to investigate abuse as "unfounded." The Vatican's statement was the latest salvo in a tense diplomatic standoff since the Irish government released a report in July accusing the Vatican of encouraging bishops to ignore guidelines requiring them to report abuse cases to civil authorities. Days later, Prime Minister Enda Kenny assailed the Vatican as trying to block an inquiry into sexual abuse by priests and placing its interests ahead of protecting children, prompting the Vatican to recall its ambassador. In its first public statement on the issue since then, the Vatican said Saturday that it "understands and shares the depth of public anger and frustration at the findings" of the July report, "which found expression in the speech" by Mr. Kenny. But it said both the report and the speech hinged on a "misinterpretation" of a key letter. The Vatican also dismissed as "unfounded" a statement by the Irish Parliament that the Vatican's intervention "contributed to the undermining of the child protection framework and guidelines of the Irish state and Irish bishops." The July report, the fourth in a series of scathing Irish government reports into sexual abuse by priests and evidence of a widespread cover-up, found that clergy members in the rural diocese of Cloyne had not acted on complaints against 19 priests from 1996 to as recently as 2009. The guidelines adopted by Irish bishops in 1996 required that abuse cases be reported to the police. The report pointed a finger at Rome for encouraging bishops to ignore the reporting guidelines. The report cited a confidential letter to the bishops of Ireland from the Vatican ambassador in 1997, in which he said that he had "serious reservations" about the child-protection guidelines, and that they violated canon law. The Cloyne Report said that letter "effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures" and "gave comfort and support" to priests who "dissented from the stated Irish church policy." The Vatican said Saturday that the letter had been misinterpreted. Taken out of context, the Vatican statement said, the letter could generate "understandable criticism." But the Vatican said the bishops had defined the child-protection policies as an "advisory document" and had never sought to make them legally binding by asking the Vatican to incorporate them into canon law, as bishops in the United States had done. The Vatican added that in Ireland, bishops were "free to apply the penal measures of canon law to offending priests," and that they had "never been impeded under canon law from reporting cases of abuse to the civil authorities." The Vatican also dismissed as "unsubstantiated" Mr. Kenny's assertions that the Vatican had tried to "frustrate an inquiry" into the sexual abuse scandal. The Vatican said the Cloyne Report "contains no evidence to suggest that the Holy See meddled in the internal affairs of the Irish State, or, for that matter, was involved in the day-to-day management of Irish dioceses or religious congregations with respect to sexual abuse issues." Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore, who also is foreign minister, described the Vatican response as "legalistic and technical," and said he held firm to the view that the Vatican had interfered in the affairs of a sovereign, democratic state. The 1997 letter, he said in a statement, "provided a pretext for some to avoid full cooperation with the Irish civil authorities." Terrance McKiernan, the president of Bishop Accountability, which monitors sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, said that the Vatican's response "shows that the Vatican is still in denial."  Irish government investigations have found that thousands of children were abused in state-run Catholic boarding schools from the 1930s to the 1990s. But dioceses often moved predatory priests to new posts where they continued to abuse children, the government found, rather than turn them over to the police. For years, bishops worldwide have cited widespread confusion about how to discipline errant priests. In the past, some high-ranking Vatican officials said that bishops should protect priests, not police them, while others sought a balance between respect for canon law and protecting children. Only with the explosion of a new sexual abuse scandal in Europe last year has the Vatican stepped up its efforts to clarify its procedures. The Vatican statement on Saturday also suggested that the Irish government should share the blame for the sexual abuse cases. The statement noted that Irish law still did not require mandatory reporting of suspected abuse by clergy members to the police, even though the issue was debated in the mid-1990s. "Given that the Irish government of the day decided not to legislate on the matter, it is difficult to see how" the Vatican's "letter to the Irish bishops, which was issued subsequently, could possibly be constructed as having somehow subverted Irish law or undermined the Irish state in its efforts to deal with the problem in question," the Vatican said. The Irish Parliament is now debating a controversial law that would make failure to report allegations of abuse to civil authorities punishable with jail time. There was one part of the Vatican statement on Saturday that the Irish government did welcome. "The Holy See is sorry and ashamed for the terrible sufferings which the victims of abuse and their families have had to endure within the Church of Jesus Christ," the statement said, "a place where this should never happen."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.